The Life of a Mathematician

Yesterday was my birthday, a fact which I didn't remember until the day before yesterday. And what did I do on my birthday? Mostly I tried to renew my driver's licence, a feat which I didn't fully accomplish until today. They needed proof that I was no longer living in California, and I had to take the written test. As near as I can tell the main difference between Idaho and California is that Idaho has an Open Range law.

Not having heard from anyone yesterday, I figured they were generally busy. Last night at around 21:30 I was bored and decided to walk over to campus and check my email. On my way there, Greg's younger brother Mike called me with an algebra question. It turned out to be too complicated to handle over the phone, so he met me on campus and we worked it out up in my office. Somewhere along the line I mentioned that it was my birthday, so after we finished he bought me a milkshake at Space Burger.

After that I was sitting at home drinking my milkshake and reading Mostly Harmless, when I got a call from Kyle. He said he's heard that it was my birthday and I wasn't doing anything. I said that news travelled fast, and he said not that fast, he just happened to be at Greg's house, along with Abe and Josh. So they came and picked me up and we went back to Greg's to play Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds while half-watching Pirates of the Caribbean. And as it turned out, they got a cake on their way to pick me up, which was very nice of them. So I had a very good birthday. I got to do algebra problems and everything!